


Culpability

by TheVampireAvatar



Series: Kit-Cat [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, In which Equius finally sheds some tears, Meowrails, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 06:54:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9808169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVampireAvatar/pseuds/TheVampireAvatar
Summary: It had taken him about four years to finally tell Nepeta how he felt about the incident, and it only took a bitch to provoke it out of him.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [I_Otaku](https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Otaku/gifts).



> Okay, so obviously I'm back in the fandom again. However, I want all of you to know that I've never written this many fics in a week since I started writing back in 2012, and that's all thanks to a new friend I made. We're doing fic trades lately and I hope they're reading this because I fuckin' love their work and I NEED MORE

“Oh my god, what happened to you?!” 

It was a fairly common question Nepeta had gotten ever since she had came back from her fighting life. It came in varying forms; what happened to her arms, if trolls fought a lot with each other, if there was a better way to control her (it was said to Equius and he was very close to decking the lady in the face), they all had different ways to phrase or ask the damned question, but they all had the same basis. They wanted to know the story behind her scars and see if it was worth paying any attention to.

It was to be expected, after all, people didn’t really grasp the concept of keeping to their own business and was always curious about others’. With scars all over her body, each one a permanent sign of her victory in battle, people automatically drew to bad conclusions. And, yes, while some of them did get it right, she really would rather they don’t say anything at all. After all, she had plenty of enough reminders every time she glanced down at her once clear skin to find bite marks, scratches, burns, or other types of scars. And if those weren’t enough, she only had to glance back behind her to find her tail long gone. 

However, it wasn’t until she was about ten in human years that she truly knew how much it bothered Equius.

The two of them were over at the nearby drugstore getting ice cream and frozen pizza for their movie date night. Feferi was out of town visiting her sister on “family business” that Equius wasn’t allowed to go to for whatever reason. Not that Nepeta minded, of course! Any time spent with her moirail, with or without his wife, was fun! 

Anyway, Nepeta was browsing through the movie lists that the Redbox machine had in stock outside the store. Equius was standing a few feet from her, texting whomever on his phone and holding a soda in the other hand. He had told her that she could pick out whatever movie she wanted, so long as it wasn’t rated R or was super “oh my gosh look at the colors, kids!” type of movie. 

Nepeta wasn’t even aware of this fucking human coming out of the store, didn’t hear the door opening, didn’t her her footsteps, nothing. No, she was interested in the new Marvel movie that just came out that she’s been dying to see and has worked up in convincing Equius that despite the foul language it would totally be funny but would he really let her watch it when-

“Oh my god what happened to you!?” 

Nepeta and Equius both looked over at the woman with stunned and agitated expressions. She walked a few more steps over to the pair and pointed unashamed at Nepeta’s bare arms. 

“Were you in a fight or something? It looked like you fought in a war!” 

It was silent for a second before Equius’s soda exploded. All three of them jumped, Nepeta letting out a small ‘oh!’ before glancing at her moirail, clearly in distress based on the sweat and how tense he was. The women however was clearly unashamed in anything and blinked, looking at Nepeta expectedly. 

“Look, um, it’s becau-”

“I don’t think that is any of your concern, madame.” Equius finished for her. With soda now all over his shirt and arm, he was directly looking at the lady with a tense posture and an angry face on. “In fact, I think it would behoove you to just move along now.” 

“Look man, I was just asking a question!” 

“And I am just answering your question!” Equius was taking the tone he used often when talking to somebody who refused to get their pet vaccinated or when he was just done with the world and had a drink to help him. Nepeta rarely heard him use this tone, but knew that it wasn’t good when he did. 

“It’s okay, Equius!” Nepeta left the redbox and latched herself onto his arm. She was right and wow, okay, he really was tense. 

Nobody said anything for a solid ten seconds, and Nepeta rubbed her head on his shoulder. “Let’s just go home, okay? We can order pizza or something. Maybe even go out to that one joint-.”

“Do they really let trolls like you go into public establishments?! I thought that’s why you were outside instead of inside buying a movie.” 

Jesus fucking Christ did this lady not know when to shut up? 

Nepeta had to hold him back when he heard her say that and she swore that she heard Equius growl at the lady as he charged at her. 

“Why, you ignorant, pompous, supercilious, little-” Equius took a full two steps toward her before Nepeta had to grab onto his back with both hands. 

“Don’t you insult me, I was just trying to ask a question, I’m being curious!” The lady had taken one back and while she did take on a furious and defensive look, she slightly curled up her hands into fists. 

“You are being insultive!” 

“Equius!” 

“I was being insultive?! How do I know that she doesn’t go around attacking people and-.” 

“You will not talking about my moirail like that!” 

“She probably deserved those scars if she acts anything like you!” 

Oh.

Oh, shit. 

Equius seemed to freeze, muscles super fucking tense they felt like fucking rocks. Nepeta looked at him in worry and shock, more anxious for the consequence of the lady’s words than anything else. It took Nepeta solid second to realize that he was beginning to shake from the fury that had to been building up in his chest. 

She glanced over to the lady, who now that Nepeta looked at her, seemed super privileged and cocky. Her hands were on her hips with her lip puckered out just right and her eyes narrowed. 

And then, all of a sudden, it was like somebody had flipped a switch. Equius was charging towards the lady, muttering words and curses Nepeta hadn’t heard him use in years. He had cut himself off at every word, he didn’t even finish a cuss before he moved onto the next. Sweat was almost dripping down his face and even when he was moving Nepeta was able to see his entire fucking body shaking. It was at that moment that she knew that if she didn’t say something soon, the cops could, and probably would, be called very soon.

Alrighty, fine then. 

Nepeta leaped in front of Equius and pushed her hands onto his chest, making him break the eye contact he had with the lady and his advance towards her (even if Nepeta had to do it twice to get a reaction). “Go to the car.”

He tried to move her off of him, but she was still an expert on fighting, having kept up with it for so many years, and was able to slither out of his arms and push back against him again. “Car!”

“Nepeta,” he growled at her and she knew that he needed to get his rage out and they would, later when the lady wasn’t there and the police wouldn’t get involved. 

“Equius, as your meowrail, I am ordering you to go to the car and wait for me there!” 

It took a second, then five. But Equius eventually was able to see some sense (or just knew that she was right all along) and stalked back to the car, albeit muttering under his breath the entire time. 

With a sigh of relief, Nepeta turned to the lady who was still behind her with her arms crossed and glaring at the troll in front of her. 

“Look, lady, I know that you probably won’t listen to anything I have to say.” The lady nodded, still fuming. Nepeta continued, “So let’s just say I got into...lots of fights when I was younger. And it did feel like a war sometimes, but that man over there,” she pointed at Equius, who was standing beside their car with his back to them. “Saved me from all of it. He doesn’t like talking about it, so just. Leave it alone, or better yet, leave us alone. Go back to whatever house you probably live in and return to your perfect life with the only ‘bad news’ you experience is when you watch it on Fox News.” 

Ignoring the staggered gasp that came from her, Nepeta turned on her heel and began walking back over to Equius. The lady tried to call out a few things towards her, but (and she checked, Equius was not in fact looking at her) she just stuck her middle finger in the air and didn’t look back. 

Equius was okay enough to drive them home, but Nepeta made him drive them to an empty ice cream shop’s parking lot. They sat in silence for a bit, both reflecting on the night’s events thus far. Nepeta didn’t really know how to approach the subject. He had made it clear that he was always there for her to talk to about anything under the sun. Whether it be about the simplest thing like what happened on a cartoon to the hardest subject for both of them-her kidnapping and abusive life- he was open like a door. But while she knew it was okay to talk to him about it, she didn’t talk to him all that much about the incident. Whenever somebody mentioned it, he got all...different. And she didn’t like that. His responses were brief, thoughtless, and he did as best as he could to change the subject as quickly as he could. He got all tense like he was tonight and it was just...something Nepeta really didn’t like to see, especially since it was him. 

She never brought it up with him, but...she didn’t even know how to phrase her concerns. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place and she really didn’t know what to do. 

“Nepeta,” Equius broke both the silence and her thoughts. “I feel as though I must apologize for my actions tonight. It was not like me to act as such and I am sorry if I spoke out of place.” 

“Aw, Equius, you know that you were only doing your job as my meowrail. I thought you were mostly okay, it’s just...your, ah-.”

“Temper?” He suggested. “Rage? Outburst? Unacceptable anger management?” 

“I was gonna say attitude,” Nepeta blinked with her eyes widening slightly. This might require a pile, but the car seats were gonna have to suffice. 

Equius stayed silent. His hands were still gripping the wheel and he wasn’t looking at her. 

Nepeta played with her hands and shifted awkwardly in the seat. She couldn’t think of a way to say anything subtle or ease the way into the conversation, so she sighed and mentally braced herself for whatever may come her way. 

“Why do you get so weird when people ask me about my scars?” He winced and shut his eyes tightly, knuckles turning white. “Like I get that it’s rude and everything but anytime someone mentions when I was taken you get all weird and I don’t like it! You become somebody very...very, well, dark.” 

“There are some things that you don’t understand, Nepeta. Things in this world where you don’t grasp-”

“Equius, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it all at this point,” She let her eyes drift over to the window and was about to think about the horror when-

“Damn it, Nepeta!” He slammed his hands on the wheel and turned to her, fury and rage carved into every line on his face. “You don’t understand what I mean! You don’t understand how I feel! You were kidnapped, forced to fucking kill, fight, starve...the list goes on! I’m pretty sure you didn’t even give me the full list of whatever happened to you!” 

She was tempted to look away and admit, yeah that was true, but at the same time…. “That’s because you can’t handle it! You get so grumpy because ‘I don’t understand,’ whatever that means! Equius, I think I would understand, I missed you too, don’t you even think I didn’t!” 

“You think I get mad because I remember how much I missed you?!” 

“Well, why else you would you get mad?”

While the rest of the conversation had been very loud and the two of them were yelling at each other, his comment was so quiet that Nepeta’s ears hurt more by the silence surrounding it than the volume from earlier. “Because it was my fault, Nepeta.”

She leaned back in her seat and tried to grasp what he truly meant. She didn’t wait too long. 

“If I hadn’t left for the vacation and just stayed to take care of you, or if I had booked an earlier flight I might’ve been able to stop him. There are so many ways where I could’ve just..helped. Something. Anything. I spent everyday with the heartbreaking idea that I was already too late to even help either of you and I just...I couldn’t bare to think about it. I still can’t. I was so close to losing you and Karkat both, and I don’t know what I would’ve done.

“Nepeta, when Karkat came back without you to tell us what happened, I...I both won and lost because while I knew where you were, I finally had a clue, you were in so much danger. I thought once again I was too late. I thought you were d-dead when I found you...fighting that other troll in the woods….” Equius was started to shake and he hunched over the steering wheel. Nepeta realized that he was crying and felt even more heartbreak than before. Fuck, what was she suppose to do? 

“But you didn’t lose me, Eq.” 

“I-I was so close though!” He looked over at Nepeta, his blue eyes desperate and vulnerable. “You don’t understand! You were so dehydrated, so malnourished, so- so weak and frail! Every inch of you was covered in a scar or an open wound and I just..It was something out of my nightmares, Nepeta. I couldn’t, I couldn’t…” He trailed off into a fit of sobs and left the troll stunned. 

He was right, she really didn’t know how to even begin to understand the pain he went through. The sight in front of her was enough to make her want to endure all of the physical pain she went through if it meant Equius was spared of the emotional trauma he was going through. How had he carried it all these years?

Wait did that mean-? 

“Equius, answer me honestly. You blame yourself for what happened right?” 

He sheepishly nodded, tears still streaming down his face. 

“Well, it-it’s not! I promise you that it isn’t,” she unbuckled herself and scooted so she was in his lap. “If it was, do you think I would be here or would come back to you?” 

When he didn’t respond she continued on, “a-and even if it was, you fixed it!” He looked confused, so she explained it with how he taught her when she was a kid. She had dropped a plate on the floor and she cried, explaining to him that it was a mistake. He taught her to clean it up and explained that as long as you had fixed your mistake, it would be okay. 

She leaned up and wiped away his tears from his eyes before she kissed the bags under his eyes. “I purromise you,” she smiled softly. “It’s not your fault.” 

Before she knew it, his arms wrapped around her and held her tightly against him. She let him sob on her, hug her, whatever he needed to get his feelings out. So long as he would be okay, then she would do anything for him. He obviously would do anything and everything for her, so she totally could see how their moirallegiance worked. For then at least, she focused on Equius and purred deeply in her chest and headbutted her horns against his chin to comfort him further.


End file.
